More Iraq And Afghanistan War Veterans Wind Up Homeless | USA Today

About 13,000 of the nation’s homeless in 2010 were ex-servicemembers between ages 18 and 30, a disproportionately large number of the nation’s overall homeless veteran population, the study says.
“These findings are particularly concerning given the anticipated number of new veterans returning from Afghanistan and Iraq,” the study concludes.
The Army expects to cut its forces by about 50,000 over the next year or two after pulling troops out of Iraq by December and continuing a drawdown of forces in Afghanistan.
The HUD-VA study noted that while young veterans make up only about 5% of the nation’s veteran population, they constitute nearly 9% of all former servicemembers who are homeless.
The Department of Veterans Affairs blames the rise in young veterans without shelter on a poor economy and an unprecedented pattern of lengthy warfare in which troops are deployed to combat multiple times.
“The key thing about this is we’re trying to figure out how to prevent homelessness among veterans, especially for individuals coming back from the wars,” says Mark Johnston, a HUD official who oversees homeless programs.